


from what i've tasted of desire.

by thenapkinthief



Category: Dollhouse
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-16
Updated: 2012-01-16
Packaged: 2017-10-29 16:30:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/321855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thenapkinthief/pseuds/thenapkinthief
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post Epitaph One. "He's holding a gun lounging in her chair; she tastes like vodka and desperation when she kisses him."</p>
            </blockquote>





	from what i've tasted of desire.

**Author's Note:**

> _Some say the world will end in fire,  
>  Some say in ice.  
> From what I’ve tasted of desire  
> I hold with those who favor fire.  
> But if it had to perish twice,  
> I think I know enough of hate  
> To know that for destruction ice  
> Is also great  
> And would suffice._
> 
> Robert Frost

"It's the end of the world," she tells him.

(He realizes later she isn't exaggerating.)

He learns several things working in the Dollhouse: People's morality is a fucked up and complicated beast. In fact, people in general are quite fucked up, convoluted and bestial. Topher has to be the most annoying creature to have walked the earth. If Ballard and Echo were combined into one they'd get second most annoying creature. Adelle DeWitt is nothing he expects and everything he really probably should have.

He never really stops learning his first and last lessons.

(He's holding a gun lounging in her chair; she tastes like vodka and desperation when she kisses him. His mouth opens against hers in instinct, ‘cause even though he was never, _ever_ expecting this, he isn't actually surprised.)

It almost feels like a dance, this. He's been exposed. He taunts Echo, tries to hurt Echo, and Echo reacts and _wins_. So then there's Adelle, and for some stupid reason he takes a step forward; thinks she'll care and understand. She doesn't; so she pushes him back, all grace and calm assuredness and he can't quite tell if it's a front anymore. He asks one last time, tries to tell her in their own special way that it wasn't personal, this betrayal. His response, volatile and mad in a way he has never risked being with her, belies all the unspoken things lying untouched between them; but she brushes past him, brushes it all away.

He remembers that he wasn't aiming for her but he still ended up seeing the red seeping across her pale blouse and the flash of shock and hurt spreading unchecked over her face before she was called back to the moment. He watched her watch him. He watched the red continue to bloom out from under her hand and, it’s too much there, hands holding him down and blood and bruises across his skin and it’s there mirrored on her, and it’s all just too damn much.

When he wakes up, he can’t help but feel it was all a dream because it seems like the next moment, and now she's there and now she's whole and the stain is gone.

(It's the end of the world and he feels the most alive he has in a while. He's good at dealing with violence and chaos. But that doesn’t mean he likes it, so it's _okay_ to seek refuge here, with her. Hell is outside so it's okay to forget that she wanted to hurt him at some point, it's okay to forget that at some point he wanted to hate her. Hell is outside so it's okay to forget they've hurt each other worse than anything out there ever could.)

He thinks it’s worse every time they wake him up. He gets that much closer to losing his sanity when his memories become strings of instances weeks and months apart. He's always been good at playing cool, though – so they get stupid, lax, think he's okay with it. That he's okay with the fact that they've wiped him and destroyed him. Despite the chance it gives him to escape he thinks he hates them a little bit for that. He hates that she knows he’ll forgive her; that he’ll, inevitably, be okay.

(When they finally decide they have to leave the Dollhouse, she seems hesitant. She flees the meeting as soon as it’s concluded. He finds her in her office; the vodka bottle is still smashed from where he shattered it. He silently waits her out; knows asking will just make her clam up. But she's clever and willful so she ends up kissing him and they end up fucking before she cracks.

With her hair over his shoulder and her nose brushing his cheek, she says, "Where will you go?"

The question takes him aback. He thought it was implicit, he thought she knew. _With you,_ he thinks. Instead he finds her hand between their bodies and traps her fingers with his.

He returns her question and she understands, she always does, and he feels her smile bloom across her lips, feels it stretch across his neck and he wishes he could turn his head 'cause he doesn't think he's ever seen her like that. He doesn't want to ruin it though so he holds her hand tighter. _With you, Adelle, always with you._ He'll never say it, but as her smile returns to something tamer and her hand slacks as her breathing evens out, he thinks it doesn't really matter.)

He escapes only to find something far worse. He comes back and finds her waiting, all smiles and cynicism now. What was once sardonic wit is now bitter and broken. She's waiting though, and he goes back to her, maybe there's a gun in his hand and anger in his chest but as he shoots her bottle of vodka he knows the inevitable: he'll always come back to be with-

"It's the end of the world," she tells him.

She tastes like vodka and desperation when she kisses him.


End file.
